Halloween Week

I decided I am going to copy my friend Meredith in how she does her blog.  I have been getting behind, and I think doing it weekly will help me remember to get it done every week.  I have found that as I am taking pictures that I tend to take a lot of pictures of specific events but not a lot of our every day lives.  So I am going to try to be more on top of our every day stuff.

On Sunday, we finished putting away stuff from the Holly Hoop and got our baskets and gifts together to take over to Holly Bruno and the Bruno family.  We had bought stuff for Holly on the 22nd.  I forgot to take a picture of the stuff we got, but it was a lot more than usual because Nike donated a bunch of stuff for us to take along with us.  My favorite moment of bringing it over to them was seeing Holly's face light up at the presents.

I've been having to work in the early morning a little bit more than normal, so Nick will usually get the girls ready once a week.  Nick loves doing the girls hair in weird hairstyles, and this morning he decided to do two antenae pigtails on Dubs.

Monday night, Nick got tickets from Nike to go Frozen on Ice.  It was so fun to see how much the girls loved it.  I knew Bri would, but wasn't sure about how Dubs would be.  She loved it.  She didn't sit still much, mostly just dancing around and eating popcorn.  It was a really fun night.

And of course Briz had to wear her princess dress.

One of the highlights from this week: more mail for Tonya Harding.  This one was about a business venture, wanting her to invest.

Wednesday night we carved pumpkins.  It included a lot of crying and whining from Dubs.  Nothing unusual these days.

Nick gets serious about his Holiday crafts.  He pulled out the drill and was highly focused on his pumpkins.  He also had a Green Bay Packers pumpkin this year.

The stairs were as always a source of drama on Wednesday and most of the week.  I had her going down on her stomach for a while, but she got sick of that real fast.  Now she takes forever as she sits down and stands up to get down each step.  But it beats her standing at the top of the stairs and whining.  Such a stubborn little girl.

Briz was so excited to carve pumpkins only to be really let down by how gross the guts were.  She wasn't excited about that part at all.

Tuesday night, she lost her tooth while her babysitter was over.  She wrote a very specific note to the toothfairy making sure she could keep her tooth so she could show mom and dad, grandparents, and friends at school.

Thursday afternoon Brizzy's music class had an "informance," where we got to come and watch her in her environment.  I love going to her school to see Briz in action.  I also love being there with other parents.  It's so reassuring to know how many great parents that are out there and part of our school.

Thursday afternoon I drove carpool for dance class.  It wasn't raining, so Dubs and I spent the hour at the park.  She loves slides and swings.  That's where she wants to spend all of her time.

                                               

She gets really excited when she hears airplanes.  She signs it over and says it over and over again.

Thursday night, we met friends at the high school for trick or treating.  The classes were decorated.

Dubs' favorite one was hands down the Lego themed room.  She got to eat a cookie.  Case closed.

Brizzy and Blair came straight from dance class, so for this night they dressed up as ballerinas.

Friday night we had our Ward Trunk or Treat.  There was a big turnout which means chaos, but the girls had a blast.  It was pouring down rain so we did the trunk or treat inside.  More chaos.

Briz then had her last soccer game on Saturday.  It was her first year playing with all girls.  And they were a fun group of girls.  Briz improved significantly from the beginning and that was fun to see.

On her very last game it was pouring rain.  The field had a huge mud puddle in it.  Towards the end of the game, Briz did a full on wipe out face first in the mud puddle.  I sort of froze, not knowing what she would do, but she got up, all the girls stopped not sure what to do, but she just kicked the ball in for her second goal.  It was for sure a proud parent moment.  She walked right off and cried.  She was done after that.  She was still upset when the game ended, but I think after getting a lot of praise from the parents she recovered.  

Briz is a good little soccer player.  Her hardest thing is sometimes she gets scared of other players, particularly if they are big girls, and then she sort of hesitates.  Once she can get over that, she does really well.  She particularly loves showing off some fancy moves :)

These pictures are back from picture day.  I am cheap and didn't order soccer pictures, so I took these instead.  

Love this awkward 1st grade pose.

After her soccer game, we went straight to the church, and actually broke into the bathrooms so Briz could shower and get all of the mud off of her.  Will Papworth and Landon Bullock had their baptisms.  Briz is very interested in baptism and asks consistently how long until she gets baptized.  She has a countdown going.

That night we got dressed for trick or treating.  It again was pouring rain, but we decided to brave it anyways.  We met the Papworths during the trick or treating and we picked up a few neighborhood kids, so we had a big group.  Wembley LOVED trick or treating.  This was her third go round so she had it down.  She loved picking out the candy herself, and said thank you every time she got a piece of candy.  So cute.  She didn't care that it was pouring rain, she could have gone for hours.

Briz was done however pretty early on.  She was cold and wet.  But she recovered quickly and was pretty excited about her candy stash.

'

I have convinced Briz for the last 6 months to grow out her hair only so she could be Elsa.  It was worth the fancy braid with sparkles I think.

Holly Hoop 2015

October is a very weird month for me.  I feel like I am a bit all over the place.  I feel stress, tired, overwhelmed, happy, content, worried, all of it.  I feel like every emotion in the book, you could pack it into the month.  I love the Holiday season, but really am not excited about Winter coming.  I feel sad about the anniversary of Hollands death, but also feel love and comfort.  This year, throw on top of that going to Utah for my little bros wedding and getting sick a lot, and it made it even more weird.  As always, I am busy planning the Holly Hoop.  Nick and I were a lot more on top of things back in September, so I think I felt a little stressed about it, but the week before is always kind of crazy.  However stressed I get, the day of, it all seems to go away.  I feel gratitude that I get to remember my daughter in such a special way, and that we get to bring people together for a good purpose.  

This year was particularly special because we mixed it up a bit and we remembered Holly Bruno.  She is 8 and is one of my activity day girls in my ward.  In august she was diagnosed with a tumor and is undergoing treatments of radiation and chemo for 43 straight weeks.  This poor girl and her family are going through something brutal and it is heartbreaking to see.  So this year, we decided to support them.  

We had a bigger turnout than ever (just a little over 300 people).  It turned out to be a gorgeous day.

I only walked about half of the 5k because there was too much to do at the start and finish, plus I still wasn't feeling great.  But Nick ran with Briz and she ran the whole 5k.  Such a good little runner. 

Holly had a particularly hard week with treatments so I wasn't sure if she would be able to be there, but not only did she come, but she ran a bit.  

We had tons of volunteers from our friends, from high school students, and we invited a bunch of missionaries out.  Missionaries were out along the way cheering people on.  It was really powerful.  Even just typing about it makes me tear up, because it was such a special afternoon.

We had tee shirts that said, " I love Holly" and the heart was shaped with the phrase, "Love is everywhere."  This Saturday afternoon epitomized that phrase.  It was impossible to be there and not feel the love.  We had past families with children that have passed away come out, people from schools, from our church, neighbors . . .   It's a lot of work, but it makes me excited to feel like I can help create a powerful moment for some people.  Makes me feel grateful.

Crazy Week

The week we got back from Utah, was absolute nuts.  A lot of it is my fault because sometimes I plan things and have a hard time accounting for other things, like cooking and cleaning.  The best part was that Monday, the day after we got back, I started to feel sick.  I worked all day Monday and Tuesday, while feeling sick.  Then I went to the Hozier concert Tuesday night.  

I finally went and saw a naturopath Wednesday night because I was tired of being sick and tired of my daughter telling me over and over again that its just a virus I needed to fight.  Her first inclination is that I have Post Viral Syndrome, which is the same as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  Hadn't really thought of that, but when I looked up the symptoms, it seemed to fit pretty well.  I took a bunch of blood work to sort of rule out other possibilities, but we will see.

I found this out the day before the anniversary of Holland's death.  So the 22nd I felt horrible.  Her birthday I had mono and strep, and on "holly-day" was sick again.  It just sucked.  I was sad.

The day wasn't great, I just sort of felt like I was surviving.  I could hardly get out of the car to go to her grave.  But Nick, Briz, and Wembley enjoyed visiting her grave.  Briz wrote her a sweet note as usual.

My parents had visited earlier and my Mom arranged these beautiful flowers.

Amidst all of that, I was also planning the Holly Hoop that was to be that Saturday.  

After the Holly Hoop Landon and Jenn had their Oregon reception at my parents house.  My parents moved out of the house just a few days later.  One of the fun highlights of the night was seeing our old nanny, who was helping serve food.  We miss Claire!

Lanny's Wedding

I took a few pictures of Landon's wedding.  Not a ton, because I was wrangling Dubs most of the time, but some, and for some reason, they won't upload to my computer.  Sometimes I hate technology.  I got a few random pictures to show up, not really sure how, but here they are.  

It was a long, but wonderful day.  It was beautiful weather!  So much so that a lot of the trees in the canyon had already died.  They got married on Thursday morning at the Bountiful temple.  It was so great to see my little brother and Jenn in the sealing room.  They looked so peaceful and so prepared.  The sealing was simple but inspiring.  We had a long break, where we hung out at Jenn's parents house in Kaysville.  And then we headed up to the reception.  The reception was at Snowbasin and it was gorgeous!  I'm not sure I've been to a reception venue that nice.  They had an extremely delicious meal, with a program.  We all got to give gifts to our new in law, something that represented our sibling.  It was a fun chance to make fun of Landon and he took it in stride.  And then of course, Landon turned it into a party.  They danced for a couple hours, but Landon started it off with a really funny choreographed routine, complete with a Michael Jackson hat of course.  Brizzy LOVED dancing in the middle of the circle, particularly when the Whip Nae Nae came on.

The weekend was also my first chance at meeting little Harrison.  He is such a cute, smilie little boy.  I didn't get to spend quite enough time with him, but we will see him at Christmas and I'm excited!

More of our yard

Nick has started calling our house the money pit.  I don't think our house is that bad, but I also don't generally have to do most of the fixing.  

We mostly finished a few projects.  We finished the fence on both sides, and we added a patio off the dining room.

When we first moved in, this areas was completely covered with trees and bushes, you couldn't even walk through it.  

We also had to move the water heater over.  And we planted some blueberry bushes, a lemon tree, and a lime tree.  We'll see how they do.

This is the fence on the other side of the house.  We also had to take out bushes and trees over here, but its makes our yard feel so much bigger!  We just can't decide how to use the awkward space now.  Any suggestions?

Lakeview Pumpkin Patch

Early October we headed out to Lakeview Pumpkin Patch.  Briz had a day off of school and I knew October was going to be crazy, so we decided to get it done early.  We actually didn't even buy pumpkins here, because they were on sale at a store near our house for $2 a pumpkin, so I opted for that instead.  Plus, I couldn't haul the pumpkins and carry Dubs.

This pumpkin patch was so awesome.  We started off with a train ride, which Briz was pretty excited about and Dubs was a little unsure of.

Briz has been wiggling her tooth for about a month straight because she wants it come out.  It sort of turned into a bad habit, so she can be found most of the time with this awesome pose.

We rode the train out to the pumpkins and they have some cool play stuff for kids.  I loved that we were out in the middle of nowhere.  

They had a little maze perfect for little kids.

Wembley thought it was fun to be running around with all of the big kids.

And then Briz got to ride a pony.  She was so excited I thought she might pee her pants.

She chose the horse Janie, and got to ride her for two whole songs!  She felt pretty special.

Briz found her new passion, horses.  She now says that when she gets older she wants to be a professional horse rider (hmm a jockey?), and she no longer wants to play basketball but ride horses instead.  I'm not gonna lie, as a horse lover myself, I love this.  I don't, however, love how expensive horseback riding is, so I will keep delaying her as much as possible.

We then rode a cool boat back from the pumpkins.

On the ride home, they had a pumpkin headed man in a boat that got attacked by a shark, and then also some dragons that popped out of the water.  

We then did some face painting.  Briz was devastated when we had to take a bath and clean this off.

And of course, my favorite part, a big ol bag of Kettle Corn.  I snuck it into a movie that night, and the ticket checker person checked my bag and saw the massive bag.  I felt like I was 12.  But hey, she didn't take it away, and Nick and I got to munch on it while watching The Martian.

This was a really fun day with my girls.  No whining, crying, fighting.  It's probably cause I sort of spoiled them, but its fun to do it every once in a while.  I'm normally so stingy that it kind of feels good as long as we don't make it a regular thing.  

Camping in the backyard

This summer, we only had the chance to go camping once, and it was without Nick, so Briz has been wanting really badly to go camping with Nick.

She had earned all of her numbers on her number chart, so as a reward, they too advantage of the nice weather and a day off of school and went camping in the backyard.  I, got to sleep in my comfy warm bed inside.  But before that, we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows outside.  It was so cute to see how excited Briz was about the whole thing.  And she of course told everyone she saw about her awesome backyard camping experience.